Natural supplements and Diabetes

The world's largest diabetes epidemic is threatening India, which is ill-equipped to cope, say experts.

The amount of type II, or adult-onset diabetes in India is high, and rising, suggests health data.

India has a population of over billion, and its citizens appear prone to developing diabetes later in life, and are certainly more susceptible to its complications such as high blood pressure leading to coronary heart disease.

Part of the blame falls on the adoption of a more Western way of life, junx food, involving fatty food and too little exercise.

Obesity is a known risk factor for the development of diabetes.

Dr Vikram Seshaiah, Medical Director of the Diabetes Unit of Apollo Hospitals in Chennai, told the annual conference of the Association of Physicians of India: "By 2005, we will have 30 to 35 million diabetics in India, and every fifth diabetic in the world will be Indian.

"Epidemiological data shows that now only the prevalence of type II diabetes is very high in the urban population, but it is on an increase."

Another problem confronting the Indian health authorities is the relatively young age at which diabetes is being diagnosed in many patients.

A study of complication in more than 3000 diabetics by the Diabetes Research Centre in Chennai showed that many had suffered eye, nerve or other tissue damage by the time diagnosis could be made.

Heart disease toll

More than 1/3rd of patients had high blood pressure, while 11.4% had developed coronary heart disease.